Water Board Pushed Around By Republicans

LAKE FRONT

The Lake County Water Authority is like the puniest kid on the block -- always getting pushed around by bullies.

And this session of the Florida Legislature is no exception.

Two bad things are in the works, and they'll both probably slide through, thanks to the Republicans in the local delegation.

The first limits what the water authority can spend on education to 3.5 percent of the amount it receives from property taxes, and the second is a deliberately misleading referendum question on whether elected authority board members should run in partisan races.

Republicans around here have had a buzz on their behinds about the water authority beginning in the 1970s. But they've been in full attack mode for at least 15 years.

They didn't like having the board appointed by the governor because too many environmentally aware scientist-types got on it. No, no, no. Let's fill that board with political hacks instead. They didn't want the authority buying property for preservation. No, no, no. They didn't want the authority buying land for recreation. No, no, no.

Now they don't want the authority educating the public and they don't want the elections to be nonpartisan.

The truth is that they just want the authority done away with.

Already, the $522,000 budget for education has been cut to $264,000 so that the authority can dredge canals for people who can afford boats.

When the 3.5-percent limit goes into effect, the education budget will drop to roughly $150,000.

God forbid we should have people who might learn something about water resources and then (yipes!) work -- and vote -- to protect them.

In truth, what limiting "education" funds will do is throw yet another dart into the hearts of Lake County schoolchildren, who are already besieged by so many other groups of greedy adults around here.

That's because about $30,000 of the "education" money goes to pay the salary of a naturalist at the Trout Lake Nature Center, where hundreds of Lake school kids get their only taste of the world of the unpaved. Center officials have been told that no single program likely will get anywhere near that much money, and the center can't pay the salary alone.

Marine scientist Dr. Bernie Yokel, who was president of Audubon of Florida for nine years, serves on the board at the nature center and also volunteers as a guide.

Yokel, who is retired now and living in Mount Dora, said the center is critical to kids because "many don't get any exposure to the natural world except what they see on the television screen."

That came home to Yokel about a year ago when 50 fourth-graders stampeded off a bus and began walking down a path with him.

A small boy took his hand, looked up and asked, "Where did you get all those trees?"

"He'd never seen this many trees so close together, and it underscored the need for getting kids out and their hands dirty and their shoes muddy," said Yokel, 75.

The second issue, involving the wording of the referendum, is more sinister.

State Rep. Hugh Gibson, R-Lady Lake, is the author of the original bill, which requires that voters be asked this question in the next general election: "Shall the members of the Lake County Water Authority be elected in partisan elections?"

This sounds as though "elected" is the key. How many people are familiar enough with this small agency to know that board members already are elected and that the question is whether the balloting should be nonpartisan?

To Gibson's credit, he wanted to amend the bill to make the wording clear when it was pointed out to him.

However, state Sen. Carey Baker, R-Mount Dora, won't go along with changing the Senate version of the bill, so by legislative rules, the original wording must stand.

Baker is wrong. Voters are entitled to cast a ballot on a question that isn't confusing and tricky. Then, if they want partisan elections, so be it. That's simply fair. It's just un-American to use questionable tactics to get what you want.

Water authority board member Everett Kelly, a Democrat-turned-Republican who helped engineer the buyout of polluting muck farms around Lake Apopka, wants the elections to stay nonpartisan.

"Lakes don't care about Republican and Democrat. All they want is to be clean," said Kelly, a former state representative whose single biggest issue was always water. "I don't think politics ought to come into cleaning up water. Republicans, Democrats, Communists, whatever -- they should all be committed to cleaning up the water."

Kelly's take on Baker and his refusal to clear up the wording: "He's a nice boy, but I just never think about Republican and Democrat when I'm doing water work."

That's good advice for Baker and all of his Republican cronies from a man whose reputation in water issues is unquestioned. They should take it.